“Over the next couple of months, as Barney’s term enters the home stretch, I’ll be taking soundings from the staff, talking it over with the masthead, and consulting with Arthur,” meaning publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., wrote Bill Keller, The Times’ executive editor, in an e-mail to The Observer.

While Calame didn’t get into specifics on who should be the next public editor, he did heap praise on the “big shots” at the Times in yesterday’s column:

Mr. Keller is now seeking someone to continue the public editor function when my fixed two-year term ends next month…. So if sometime next year the public editor describes in this space a journalistic lapse at the paper, readers would be wise to remember that Mr. Keller deserves some of the credit for sticking with the process that brought it to light.